Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A

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The School of Paris : paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx collection Preface by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., introduction by James Thrall Soby, notes by Lucy R. Lippard

Author Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)

Date 1965

Publisher The Museum of Modern Art: Distributed by Doubleday

ISBN 087070575X

Exhibition URL www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2838

The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history—from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists.

56 pages , 45 illustrations (16 in color) $5.95

The School of Paris Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection Foreword by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Introduction by James Thrall Soby, Notes by Lucy R. Lippard

Some twenty-five years ago in Chicago the late Samuel A. Marx and his wife Florene began to form what was to become, as James Thrall Soby states, "a collection of such authority that it would be difficult to think of its rival among pri vate collections of modern art." They were not avant-garde, for they confined themselves to the well-known painters of the School of Paris. Yet, as Alfred H. Barr, Jr. points out, "they were col lectors of courage ... shown in selecting what they felt to be best without regard for conven tional proprieties." They pioneered in being among the first to dare bring into their home paintings that to most collectors at the time would have seemed too big, too aggressive, and too strong to live with— Matisses of the heroic period of 1911 to 1916 culminating in The Mo roccans, Leger's Woman with Cat, an extraordi nary range of Picassos demonstrating many as pects of that protean master's style. Other works are smaller in scale or more serene in mood, yet all show the collectors' aim to buy and cherish truly exalted works by artists of international re pute. Kept small deliberately by continuous dis tillation and refinement, the collection has won admiration and deep respect. This book, published on the occasion of the first public showing of the paintings, reproduces them all— more than a third in color. Lucy R. Lip pard has provided meticulously researched notes that give much valuable and illuminating infor mation for each painting.

The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street New York, N.Y. 10019 Distributed by Doubleday & Co., Garden City, New York The School of Paris

Errata

Page 10 The plate of MATISSE. Goldfish (1915-16) is printed in reverse.

Page 16, line 2 For OIL ON WOOD read OIL ON CANVAS.

The School of Paris

In the captions dates in parentheses do not appear on the work. In dimensions height precedes width.

Following page: HENRI MATISSE. French, 1869-1954. Moroccan Garden , 1912. Oil on canvas, 46 x 32%". Purchased 1951.

It has been pointed out that when Matisse traveled to Tangier for the first time, in the winter of 1911-12, the excitement it inspired in him was not due to its exoticism, but to the new, purely visual responses it drew from him as an artist. Nevertheless, there is a quasi-Oriental languor in the way the three plump curves at the left meet the sinuous grace of the tree at the right to form a broad arabesque between them that dominates this picture. There is not a straight line in the canvas; the forms are as soft and lush as the colors, and over all hovers a sense of noonday heat and stillness. It is one of the three park or garden scenes done at the time, and the most stylized, abstract and flatly conceived of the group. Ma tisse was attracted to the brilliant colors and to the strange flora- such as the acanthus plant found here, which he had never seen outside of stone carvings on Corinthian capitals.

The School of Paris

PAINTINGS FROM THE FLORENE MAY SCHOENBORN AND SAMUEL A. MARX COLLECTION Preface by Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Introduction by James Thrall Soby Notes by Lucy R. Lippard

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK in collaboration with The Art Institute of Chicago, City Art Museum of St. Louis, San Francisco Museum of Art, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico

DISTRIBUTED BY DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK 6 7^. 2 3 A l U >ty£-

/UMft PREFACE 11°! To visit the apartment of Sam and Florene Marx was a unique experience even for one who had been inspect ing private collections of modern art with more or less professional scrutiny for over forty years. Neither in Chicago nor more recently in New York were the Marx apartments large—or did they merely seem modest in size because the objets d'art were so many and the paintings so big? Everywhere, in the vitrines, on shelves, pedestals and table tops, in corners were things to look at—objects superbly chosen with knowledge and dis crimination. Sam Marx was an architect and a distin guished designer of interiors but his apartment did not at all suffer from the cautious restraint of conventional good taste. Variety, a spirit of enthusiasm and rich pro fusion were there; profusion, yes, but magically, with out clutter. And then one raised one's eyes: the minor pleasures of the foreground faded and there on the walls were the pictures. In several ways Florene and Sam Marx were not pio neers when, together, they began to collect paintings, some twenty-five years ago. They could, and perhaps did, look back to those redoubtable San Francisco ex patriates Leo and Gertrude and Sarah Stein, who as early TRUSTEES OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART as 1905 had felt that Matisse and Picasso would be the David Rockefeller, Chairman of the Board; Henry Allen Moe, Vice- two great new masters of the twentieth century. But Chairman; William S. Paley, Vice-Chairman ; Mrs. Bliss Parkinson, the Marxes were not avant garde; only once did they President and Vice-Chairman; James Thrall Soby, Vice-President; buy a canvas while the paint was still wet. Nor did they Ralph F. Colin, Vice-President; Gardner Cowles, Vice-President; Willard C. Butcher, Treasurer; Walter Bareiss, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., venture outside the well-known painters of the School *Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, William A. M. Burden, *Mrs. W. Mur of Paris. Their courage— and courage they had—was ray Crane, John de Menil, Rene d'Harnoncourt, Mrs. C. Douglas Dillon, Mrs. Edsel B. Ford, *Mrs. Simon Guggenheim, Wallace K. Harrison, Mrs. Walter Hochschild, *James W. Husted, Philip John son, Mrs. Albert D. Lasker, John L. Loeb, Ranald H. Macdonald, Porter A. McCray, *Mrs. G. Macculloch Miller, Mrs. Charles S. Pay- son, *Duncan Phillips, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Mrs. Wolfgang Schoenborn, Mrs. Donald B. Straus, *Edward M. M. Warburg, Monroe Wheeler, John Hay Whitney. * Honorary Trustee

©1965, The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10019 Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 65-25727 Printed in the U.S.A. by Lebanon Valley Offset Company, Inc. Designed by Joseph Bourke Del Valle

The Museum of Modern Art Library shown in selecting what they felt to be best without The Marxes saw it and insisted on buying it to keep regard to the conventional proprieties. They did not for awhile before giving it to the Museum. In Chicago prudently shun paintings that were in size and de The Moroccans took a dominating place in the Marx meanor "unsuitable for the home," paintings that dining room where previously Picasso and Matisse rudely asserted themselves in company, that tended to had engaged in even competition. Fortunately for the diminish the scale of living rooms or, one might add, Museum, the New York apartment was somewhat the scale of owners and their guests. smaller so that, thanks to the generous Marxes, The This is not to say that all the Marx pictures are heavy Moroccans now more than holds its own in the Mu artillery. Some are small and easily domesticated and seum's Matisse gallery. some of the best large ones—the Braque Yellow Table cloth and the wonderful Bonnard— are gentle, charm ing and serene. But what gives the Marx collection its Now for the first time the paintings, small as well as character is the dozen or so magnificent paintings that large, in the Sam and Florene Marx collection (includ even ten years ago would have seemed, to most col ing works given to museums) are to be shown publicly lectors, too big, too aggressive and too strong to live in The Museum of Modern Art and then in The Art In with: Leger's Woman with Cat, La Fresnaye's Artillery stitute of Chicago, the City Art Museum of St. Louis, the and Dubuffet's Building Faqades; Picasso's Woman's San Francisco Museum of Art and the Museo de Arte Head and cubist Woman with Pears, his monstrous Moderno in Mexico City. Florene Marx, now Mrs. Wolf blue surrealist Woman by the Sea and his Girl Reading; gang Schoenborn, with the gracious agreement of her and, finally, the heroic Matisses of the great years 1911 husband, has made these exhibitions possible. Her fel to 1916: the largest and most abstract of the seven low Trustees of The Museum of Modern Art wish to goldfish paintings, de Heem's grandiose, seventeenth- thank Mrs. Schoenborn for her public-spirited gener century still life exploding into color, the austere osity in lending the collection to the Museum so that Woman on a High Stool (a favorite of Florene Marx) it may be shown not only in New York but in other and the culminatory Moroccans. museums across the continent. Perhaps because it was so big and uncompromisingly powerful, Matisse had kept The Moroccans for thirty- five years when in 1951 The Museum of Modern Art Alfred H. Barr, Jr. borrowed it a second time for a Matisse retrospective. Director of the Museum Collections

Following page: HENRI MATISSE. French, 1869-1954. Woman on a to solid, slightly rounded body to oval head on a straight neck. An High Stool (1913-14). Oil on canvas, 57% x 37%". Purchased 1958. equally heavy but less expressive line is used to describe the other The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Sam two objects. The composition is reduced to a minimum; not an uel A. Marx, the latter retaining life interest. extraneous detail mars the ascetic restraint. The vase painting on the wall, by Matisse's then teen-aged son, Pierre, repeats the figure, in a symmetrical placement as well as in form. (Woman on a In the gray cold of a Parisian winter, Matisse painted this austere, High Stool served a similar function two years later in the great simplified figure which is diametrically opposed to the colorful, Piano Lesson in The Museum of Modern Art.) A brief transition be sensuous freedom of Moroccan Garden (frontispiece). Warmth tween the strict verticality of these two elements and the table's and hedonism have been replaced by a rigorous linear style and horizontal is effected by the sheet of paper which acts as a diag sober gray, rvear-monochrome palette. Strong line defines the onal repoussoir and in turn duplicates the angle at which the stool massive columnar weight of the figure, tapering from heavy stool is set. <&>(*3~' if i pi v i

MATISSE. Woman on a High Stool (1913-14). Oil on canvas, 57% x 37%". See note, page 5 INTRODUCTION

The works of art in this collection have been chosen The Moroccans (page 15) is a climactic picture in the with the rapt concentration of diamond cutters, anx career of a twentieth-century artist whom only Picasso ious to discover and preserve the ultimate facets of has been able to rival. In compositional daring and beauty in an already precious substance. No imperfec vigor of color The Moroccans is surely one of the great tions, however slight, have been tolerated, nor have est paintings of our time. It is as abstract in the sense flaws in the qualitative character of the gems them of defying instant legibility as the pictures by the early selves. The result is a collection of such authority that Kandinsky, the cubists and other patriarchs of what is it would be difficult to think of its rival among private by now a venerable anti-realist tradition. It does not collections of modern art. so much evoke space by linear definition and model The collection has been kept small deliberately— and ing as it awakens it through a series of tonal vibrations. this in an era when other inspired American collec It does so without straining credulity or reaching for tors have preferred to buy in number. The process of effect; it is under reckless yet unerring control from its distillation and refinement has been continuous. I beginning to end. It forcefully summarizes the master remember once walking awe-struck through the Chi ful discipline which guided this artist's spontaneity and cago apartment where Florene and the late Samuel A. freshness. The almost scholastic research which under Marx lived and where most of these paintings were lies its lyric outburst is revealed by comparing it with hung. The supply of meaningful superlatives in our the Variation on a Still Life by de Heem of the same language is astonishingly limited. I had about run period (page 13). through it in commenting on the pictures when Sam A second magnificent Matisse is the slightly earlier Marx said: "I wish there were fewer and better paint Woman on a High Stool (page 6). Here the stern, grim ings here by the same artists." The first part of his wish elongation of the figure contrasts markedly with the could have been managed, of course; the second part rococo voluptuousness of the painter's later oda with few exceptions was impossible. I said so and lisques. The Goldfish (page 10) of the following year Sam replied: "That's the trouble. There's nothing here (1915-16) is no less remarkable in its bold and haunt now that Florene and I would like to exchange." ing simplifications of form. And among the less ambi All the sculptures in the collection have been omitted tious paintings by Matisse, none better exemplifies his from the present exhibition for the simple reason that ability to make sketchiness an evocative and dignified transporting them would have been difficult and some pictorial device than his Moroccan Garden (frontis of the finest are fragile. The word "all" immediately piece), executed as early as 1912. strikes a discordant note. It implies that the sculptures I think it is perhaps the superb group of Matisses are numerous. They are not. As in the case of the paint which best typifies a fundamental of the collectors' ings, adevoutlyselective procedure has been followed. taste. In art they disliked— or at any rate were indiffer The collection's founders never shared the current pas ent to—the tame and the pretty. When they had made sion, sometimes genuine and deep, sometimes vain up their minds about the validity of a given artist, they glorious, for discovering major artists in their embry sought him full strength, without regard for seductive onic state. Instead their aim was to buy and cherish ness, fashion or ready availability. The "availability" of the truly exalted works of painters and sculptors of masterworks of modern art might seem to have been a international repute. Their aim has not been easy to minor problem in 1939, when this collection began to achieve. It has won the collection a world-wide respect. be formed. But even then the number of courageous Among such treasures as the paintings in this exhibi private collectors was growing rapidly and some im tion, it is perhaps foolhardy to single out a transcend portant museums here and abroad had entered the ent work. Yet few, I think, would deny that Matisse's field of advanced contemporary art. The outbreak of

7 World War II had sealed off the European markets and Cubism's austere reticence as to color and texture almost nothing available of top quality crossed the underwent a gradual enrichment. By the time of World Atlantic for six years. To start building a great collec War I Picasso was creating such resplendent works as tion against such odds of scarcity required patience the Guitar over Fireplace (page 22) wherein cubism's and alertness to an exceptional degree. These were vir earlier sobriety was relaxed in favor of encrusted and tues Sam and Florene Marx combined with rare visual speckled surfaces and aggressive tonal contrasts. In the sensitivity. They pored over books and magazines, oc mid-1920s the artist brought to a conclusion a series of casionally consulted museum curators— and in the end unashamedly handsome still lifes, among them the fine made up their own minds. Still Life with Plaster Arm (page 23). Most of the paint The vigor of taste which sustains the collection at its ings in the series are relatively straightforward and very high level is nearly as apparent in the case of have few if any psychological overtones. But in one Picasso as in that of Matisse. It is true that elegiac com passage at least, the picture just mentioned provides passion is found in the former's Head of a Peasant of a prophetic exception. There is something distraught 1906 (page 19) and tenderness in the much later Head about the way the painter intensifies the gesture of the of a Boy (page 27). But we should remember that mercy plaster hand clutching the spear shaft, as though for the old and adoration of the young have been con Picasso were tiring of unrelieved sensual charm. stants of Picasso's volatile temperament and that he This was indeed the case. Two years later the influ has utilized both emotional extremes without surren ence of surrealism's clamorous uprising began to be dering dignity to sentiment, certainly not in the exam unmistakable. If Picasso was too powerful and estab ples here shown. Even so, it is Picasso at full-stop vol lished an artist to become a surrealist in the official ume who dominates this selection of his works. In this sense, there can be little doubt that he was affected by connection it is worth noting that the Woman Comb the new group's emphasis on the unrestrained and fre ing her Hair (page 18) provides a relatively strident foil quently tumultuous imagery suggested by the sub to the Head of a Peasant, already mentioned, as does conscious mind. The Head of 1927 (page 25), with its the monumental Bust of a Woman (page 16). Late in relationship to the scrawls of troubled children, illus 1907, after the miracle of the world-famous Les De trates Picasso's respectful if brief absorption in the vast moiselles d' Avignon, Picasso took another precipitous terrain of psychological fantasy and aberration opened step forward and plunged into his short-lived but ex up by Freud and his disciples. tremely important"Negro" period. By comparison with From such a deliberately flat graffito Picasso turned what he had done before a new, almost convulsive to extreme roundness of form, as in the Woman by the spirit is apparent and it cut off forever Picasso's inheri Sea (page 27). Beginning with a series of small pictures tance from fin-de-siecle Parisian art and from certain executed at Dinard during the summer of 1928, he be rather sweet variants on Spanish Mannerism by which came interested in biomorphic and hallucinatory struc he had been seduced in youth during his Blue and Rose tures, conceived on a much larger scale and closely periods. He began to walk now with a more ferocious allied to sculpture. Here it must be noted that Picasso's pride, like his beloved Minotaur thrashing in its cave. extreme changeability cannot adequately be explained The Woman's Head (page 17) is a condensed and se in formalistic terms of dimension or style. It includes vere example of Picasso's style during the year 1907. drastic shifts in mood. From the meditative Girl Read The picture's impact as a tribal icon is softened some ing of 1934 (page 28) he was easily capable of moving what in the slightly later Bust of a Man (page 17). By on to the playful wit of the Woman in Armchair , its 1909, when the Woman with Pears was painted (page distortions both compulsive and laughable. 21), the artist was thoroughly engrossed in the revolu Picasso's comrade in the evolution of cubism, Geor tionary cubist esthetic which he and Braque had devel ges Braque, is represented in the exhibition by six oped the year before. paintings. Their choice obviously was guided by the collectors' recurrent emphasis on strength, for none of mula. The taste of those who built this collection was them descends to the decorative virtuosity toward far too erudite to be contained by dogmatic faith in which Braque's talent sometimes led him. They are visual revolution for its own sake. Thus they also rich and noble works and The Mantelpiece, the Yellow bought and cherished one of Pierre Bonnard's great Tablecloth, the Woman at an Easel and The Studio est works, the Nude in Bathroom (page 42). They real (pages 32-35) are among the finest pictures of Braque's ized fully that Bonnard was not merely a belated im long career. To Picasso's headlong passion as an artist pressionist but was, on the contrary, a consummate Braque opposed and brought to a very high level le master of opalescent color and compositional audac bon gout in the best sense of the term. Whereas the ity. And they admired Rouault before repetition re former's art is often restless, the latter's is calm, duced his anguished screams to a mumble; they liked thoughtful and intensely professional. Soutine in his giddy prime (pages 50-53, page 55). Two other ranking members of the cubist group— Gris Sam and Florene Marx were no believers in national and Leger—are represented by two estimable works superiority in the arts. However deep their interest in apiece. Unlike Picasso, who without strain or betrayal French-born artists, they acquired besides the Picassos could court elegance and exploit the uncouth, Juan a first-rate picture by the Italian Modigliani (page 43) Gris was single-minded in purpose and faith. His vision and one of the four very large works done in his youth was crystal clear, his goal perfection. In such early by de Chirico, Modigliani's compatriot and the chief works as the Still Life with Playing Cards (page 36) and progenitor of the surrealist movement in painting even more unanswerably in his collages of the follow (page 45). ing year (page 38) he attained a purity which was For Joan Miro they felt a particular affection. They neither delicate nor cold but inspired and fresh. His saw that Miro, like his elder countryman Picasso, ma colleague, Fernand Leger, seems to me (perhaps un tured early as an artist. They acquired his fine Portrait reasonably) to have reached more personal ground of E. C. Ricart (1917) as well as one of the best works when he moved on from cubism to those bold reflec from his superb series of "Dutch Interiors," based on tions on our mechanized era typified in The City (page postcards of pictures by the Dutch Little Masters which 37) and the swollen tubular forms of the Woman with Miro had brought home from a trip to Holland in 1928 Cat (page 39). (pages 46 and 48). They owned two later and more Roger de La Fresnaye's estimable function was to impulsive oils by the Spanish artist. And from the ple combine the angular structure of cubism with tradi thora of over-refined painters in postwar Paris they tional French relish in color, as though he kept Dela singled out the hardy and immensely gifted Jean Du- croix in mind as well as Cezanne. The beginnings of his buffet, a bitter opponent of art for art's sake (page 54). achievement may be discerned in his Artillery of 1911 The pictures here shown form what is assuredly one (page 40), even though the picture is sombre by com of the most remarkable and heartening private collec parison with the works he produced two years later. tions of modern painting ever assembled. Its public De La Fresnaye was French to his fingertips. So was his exhibition will confirm what friends of these collectors elder, Raoul Dufy, who never endorsed cubism's prin have long known— that such warm and uncompromis ciples but who in 1916 created the memorable Mo ing taste can create its own masterwork. zart's House in Salzburg (page 41), using a swift calli graphy which later declined into a fashionable for James Thrall Soby

9 MATISSE. Goldfish (1915-16). Oil on canvas, 57% x 44%". See note, page 12.

Opposite: MATISSE. Apples (1916). Oil on canvas, 46 x 35". See note, page 12.

4". MATISSE. Goldfish (1915-16). Oil on canvas, 57% x 44y Pur MATISSE. Apples (1916). Oil on canvas, 46 x 35". Purchased 1940. chased 1948. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. The Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx, the latter retaining life interest. A far more simple and radical rendition of the verticality and sin More than a touch of cubism, to which Matisse was attracted late gle object found in Goldfish (page 10) appears in the almost sym in its great period, can be discerned in this still life, but if shifting metrical Apples. The theme might be said to be roundness, al space, angled planes, the linear network at the right and the up- though no form is absolutely circular. The full volumes of the tilted table with its "transparent" section reflect the prevailing fruits complement the flat roundness of the table top. Opposed to mode of the times, the implacable black vertical, the ornamental this spherical dominance, however, is the more rigorous quasi- curls of the ironwork and the touches of brilliant color and power striped effect of the ground— from blackest of black shadows on ful but free line are utterly personal. This is the last and least real one side to a swathe of yellow light on the other. The heavy con istic of a group of six Goldfish interiors; it is centered on the bold tour line of the lower arc of the table endows the lower half of the opposition of black and pale, lyrical blue, with the fruit, the fish canvas with a weight that balances the concentration of formal and the plant providing colorful focusing points, faintly echoed in interest in the upper half. Vestiges of the cubist concept of double the maroon and green shadows on the table legs and the patches viewpoint are retained, since the table leg is seen from the side, of orange and reddish brown at the right. its top and the apples from above.

Opposite: MATISSE. Variation on a Still Life by de Heem (1915, 1916 or 1917). Oil on canvas, 71 % x 87". Purchased 1940. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx, the latter retaining life interest.

This is the second time in which Matisse utilized Dessert by Jan Davidsz de Heem (left), a seventeenth-century still life in the Louvre. The first version— a relatively faithful academic copy— dates f.rom the mid-1890's. Returning to the subject some twenty years later, he found it provided all the favorite cubist props for what is his major work in that idiom. Fruit, glasses, pitcher, fruit dish, bottles, musical instrument and architectural planes are arranged within the traditional shallow-spaced grid, in a composition closer to Cezanne and Juan Gris than to Picasso and Braque. Matisse has transformed the horizontal composition by cutting it with a strong black vertical and stressing a pillar at the left rather than the broader spreading arch at the right. The color too is a combination of cubist mono chrome—concentrated in the more detailed right side— and Matisse's JAN DAVIDSZ de HEEM. Dutch, 1606?-c.1684. The Dessert. Ant own ebullient palette— most conspicuous in the landscape seen 5/8 werp, 1640. Oil on canvas, 58 x 80". Paris, The Louvre Museum. through the window, which is less rigidly constructed than the rest. 13 MATISSE. The Moroccans (1916). Oil on canvas, 71% x 110". Pur chased 1951. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx.

Painted from memory, this monumental canvas distilled the es sence of Matisse's two Moroccan sojourns. "My choice of colors is based on the very nature of each experience," Matisse wrote. Tangier might well be such pinks, terra cottas, yellow, blue and green against a rich black field. A tour de force synthesizing pre conceived, geometrical principles and intuitive idiosyncratic color and form, the painting consists of three clearly separated areas: the mosque dome over the terrace with its bunch of blue and white striped flowers, the four melons with bulging leaves on a checker board pavement (these have also been read as praying figures), and the extremely abstract worshippers at the right. Analogous circular motifs are found in each area, but otherwise the shapes are varied between inanimate walls, organic fruit and the human body. The tone and rhythms of each are distinct, but they interact in terms of form, color and meaning to animate the black time- space dividing them.

PABLO PICASSO. Spanish, born 1881. Lives in France. Bust of a 4". Woman (1906). Oil on wood, 31% x 25'/ Purchased 1955. The Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx.

During 1906, Picasso was gradually assimilating the influences of Cezanne and of the chunky pre-Roman Iberian sculptures newly arrived at the Louvre. Bust of a Woman is completely sculptural, although placed just off-center in order to activate the two-dimen sional picture space. It has a crude, but not yet aggressive strength. The egg-shaped head, with its geometrically simplified features, is expressionless. Picasso had abandoned the charm and somewhat illustrative qualities of his earlier work to explore the vital formal and emotional potentials of primitive cultures. The way was now paved for the birth of cubism and for one of the major monuments of modern art. In 1907, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon dynamically shattered all vestiges of classical calm and solid volumes.

16 3/8 t of a PICASSO. Woman's Head (1907). Oil on canvas, 28% x 23%". Pur PICASSO. Bust of a Man (autumn, 1908). Oil on canvas, 24 x 8". The chased 1951 . 17'/ Purchased 1955. rx. Picasso says that he did not see any African sculpture until 1907, By 1908 Picasso was returning once again to a more three-dimen :es of although Vlaminck and others had been collecting it since 1904. sional and sculptural form, but instead of repeating the fully round newly Nevertheless, by the time he was completing Les Demoiselles d' Avi ed naturalistic volumes of 1906 found in Woman Combing her )tural, gnon, he had been profoundly impressed by the intensity and lack Hair and Bust of a Woman (pages 18 and 16), he employed the imen- of visible reality found in sculpture and masks from the French stylization of the "Negro" period to produce angular, faceted mgth. Congo and the Ivory Coast. One of the numerous studies for and planes, suggestive rather than descriptive of mass. Eyes and mouth res, is after Les Demoiselles, this head was painted while the larger canvas are identically bordered almond shapes, like those in African art, swhat was still in process though it recalls the upper right figure. The but the violent dislocation of Les Demoiselles d' Avignon has given ormal direct resemblance to African masks is conspicuous, but the paint way to a calmer and more monumental concept. i now ing is also notable for its extremely expressionist strokes, its muted nents palette of greens, olives and ochres (increasingly prevalent in the lically next few years), and its disregard of all but the most salient facial features, distorted for maximum emotive power.

17 Hj Opposite: PICASSO. Woman Combing her Hair (1906). Oil on PICASSO. Head of a Peasant (1906). Oil on canvas, 15% x 17%". canvas, 49 % x 35%". Purchased 1939. Purchased 1953.

This represents a step toward a sculptural rather than pictorial con Picasso spent the summer of 1906 in Gosol, in the Spanish Pyre ception of the figure; there is also a bronze version of the subject. nees, where he culminated his classical Blue and Rose periods with Essentially a transitional painting, it is progressively less advanced a group of figure studies, many of which depicted the peasants of in style from top to bottom. The head achieves a new severity, the region. He did several drawings of this old man with his sad rendered in simple geometrical terms; the torso consists of firmly but stoic expression. Despite the gentle coloring and linear tech modeled volumes in a more realistic idiom. Then, at the thighs, the nique, the painting has a certain strength and awkwardness that figure is abruptly dematerialized by a wispy garment covering the herald the break with traditional notions of beauty and modes of legs, which are barely defined within the cloud of pinks and grays portraiture which was to transform Picasso's art. Conventional char and rapid line. The upper area is further solidified by the rectangu acter study and the pathos of old age were soon to be replaced by lar frame of hair and dark shadow. The new interest in compact, more impersonal themes, and the lyrical, often sentimental style massive form notwithstanding, Picasso still presented his subject in which Picasso had been working since the turn of the century within an aura of grace and melancholy. was to give way to a stronger, less graphic manner.

19 PICASSO. Seated Nude (summer, 1909). Gouache on illustration board, 24% x 19". Purchased 1944. The Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx.

In 1909, Picasso was still exploring the possibilities of the African style initiated two years earlier. This sketch of a seated figure is less brusquely dislocated than the 1907 head, but more so than that of 1908 (page 17). Emotional intensity is diminished in favor of experimentation with combinations of flat and modeled, drawn and painted form.

Opposite: PICASSO. Woman with Pears (summer, 1909). Oil on canvas, 36% x 28%". Purchased 1955.

Picasso spent the summer of 1909 in Horta de Ebro, where he ex panded Cezanne's geometrically structured forms into a new and more intellectual style based on a rapidly shifting viewpoint. "I paint objects as I think them," said Picasso, "not as I see them." In analytical cubism, the known properties of an object, as well as those seen at a given moment or from a given vantage point, are incorporated into a new whole by means of homogeneity of form and color. All the small, sharp elements are alike and overlapping; the palette is reduced to greens, grays and browns that cross the boundaries of the splintered forms rather than describing them singly. Nevertheless, head and still life are still sculpturally self- contained and easily distinguishable from each other. Later the underlying naturalism would be submerged in a field of fragmented planes with points of departure in recognizable form visible only at intervals. There is also a bronze of this head, but it reflects the faceted painting style, whereas the reverse was true in 1906 (see 7 Woman Combing her Hair, page 18).

4". PICASSO. Guitar over Fireplace, 1915. Oil on canvas, 51 % x 38 y Purchased 1944.

By 1915 Picasso had introduced synthetic cubism, which takes its name from the invented forms suggested by objects but not di rectly abstracted from them, and therefore "artificial." It was en riched by bright colors, impasto textures and decorative patterns. Here Picasso mixed sand with the paint in places, built up relief edges (the guitar form in the center), simulated wood grain (right), punctured the paint (upper left), dotted it with a pointillist spray of color and generally added a tactile quality not found in the ana lytical period. Two canvas rectangles have been glued onto the center, perhaps to correct the composition, perhaps to provide further surface interest. The angular interpenetrating planes are broad and assured, so that the patterned areas provide highlights in the composition rather than merely prettify it. All depth is denied except for the minuscule amount of space implicit in the overlapping forms and in the known sense of the objects as they exist in reality.

Opposite: PICASSO. Still Life with Plaster Arm, 1925. Oil on canvas, 2 2 38'/ x 51 14". Purchased 1953.

Ten years after Guitar over Fireplace, Picasso's cubism had softened and mellowed into curvilinear silhouettes. Compact, but free, rear ranged, but not distorted, this still life is a monumental example of the type. The brilliant red of the tablecloth is more than a ground; it is the major formal element, an integral field of light against which the cut-out curve of mandolin, fruit and bowl, the angular book and table and flowing rococo shape of the plaster arm stand out in reflected clarity. The cool gray-green of the fruit is the sole tonal contrast within the rich color scheme, and the roughly brushed line of the mandolin strings provides just the masterful note of spontaneity and imprecision necessary to keep the painting from becoming too "perfect."

PICASSO. Woman in Armchair (summer, 1941). Oil on canvas, 36% x 28%". See note, page 26

Opposite: PICASSO. Head (1927). Oil and plaster on canvas, 39% x 31%". See note, page 26.

PICASSO. Woman in Armchair (summer, 1941). Oil on canvas, 36% x 28%". Purchased 1950.

Painted in July, 1941, when Paris was occupied by the Nazis, this portrait reflects the prevailing mood of despair and desperation in its brutal angles, roughly scraped striations that cover the surface, and hot color— red against magenta and browns. Both technique and emotional impact resemble the African head of 1907 (page 17) and the double image (eye as nose, armchair as arms and hands) resembles the 1927 Head (page 25). But this is also psychological portraiture at its best. It probably portrays Dora Maar— a photogra pher and artist in her own right, and a sharp, forceful personality. Despite the exaggeration of natural form, the sitter's character is effectively described by the erect pose and by the head, held back in a gesture at once gay, belligerent, and vulnerable. With her bared teeth and rolling eyes, the woman can be seen more gener ally as a primitive deity, a disquieting, even fearsome image whose brutality and energetic execution call to mind Willem de Kooning's famous Women of a decade later.

PICASSO. Head (1927). Oil and plaster on canvas, 39% x 31%". Purchased 1951. The Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx.

Surrealism was officially born in 1924, and Picasso had been casu ally associated with its adherents for some time. However, it was only around 1927 that he was drawn to its techniques in such vis ual puns as this face-figure, where head doubles as nose, nostrils as eyes, chin as arm, mouth as sex, brow as legs, and so on. Both metaphoric and metamorphic, the central form can also be inter preted in several other ways within the basically double image. If it is seen as a full-length figure, the upper protrusions can be read interchangeably as head or arms, and while the three lines at left remain hair, they change positions in each new configuration. Fun damentally this is a variant on the cubist practice of portraying a head in simultaneous front face and profile, and the shallow recti linear ground is still vaguely cubist, but surrealism supplied the impetus for a freer, more irrational and spontaneous dislocation of that eminently rational concept.

26 Below: PICASSO. Woman by the Sea, 1929. Oil on canvas, 51 x 38%". Purchased 1952. This standing bather, another product of Picasso's periodic preoc cupation with sculptural form against a flat backdrop, is related to the more exotic "bone" paintings of the same year, as well as to surrealism's distorted quasi-illusionism. There is also an architec tural quality in its geometrical solidity— a witty contrast to the robustly organic buttock-breast forms at the right. The grisaille figure is subtly touched by warm ochre tints on the right foot and upper left arm, as though a statue were slowly coming to life.

Above: PICASSO. Head of a Boy, summer, 1944. Gouache (brush and ink and wash), 19% x 11%" (sight). Purchased 1951.

This is one of four nearly identical drawings of a young boy which were made within three days in August 1944—a period of great tension, just before the liberation of Paris. Picasso has explained his brief return to a romantic realism at that point by saying: "A more disciplined art, less unconstrained freedom in a time like this is the artist's defense and guard." Aside from its delicate but rapid execution, this elongated head of a solemn and beautiful child is very close to the sensitive lyricism of the Blue period, some forty years before. Thus Picasso as a cubist, a representational painter, an expert draughtsman, has remained constant to the prime direc tions of his art throughout the extraordinary variety of his life-work, a fascinating cross-section of which is presented by the fourteen \«***; paintings in this collection.

PICASSO. Cirl Reading, 1934. Oil on canvas, 63% x 51 Pur chased 1945.

In the early thirties, Picasso's painting became calm and voluptu ously curvilinear. In this affectionate rendering of an intimate scene, the girl is given a childlike appearance by her sweet expres sion and flowered garland, and by the fact that the table is exag geratedly tall. A near triangle of off-center emphasis is formed by the face and hands. While the sinuous line and the face seen from a double viewpoint recall Braque's nearly contemporary rendering of a similar subject (page 34), there is nothing classical or with drawn about Picasso's hedonism, as expressed by the full volumes compressed into a close space. The richly entwining plant forms, mellow lamp light, close-up scale and glowing color are in con trast to Braque's static shapes, austere black silhouettes, and de tached attitude. Cirl Reading evokes a moment of peace and well- being, but it is also vibrantly alive. GEORGES BRAQUE. French, 1882-1963. A/ax (1949-54). Oil on 2". paper mounted on canvas, 71 x 28'/ Purchased 1955. This striding Trojan warrior, whose adversary is only implied by a leg disappearing at the right, has been variously dated between 1947 and 1955. The image first appears in an engraving from around 1934, and is also preceded by the incised plaster reliefs of 1931, the etchings illustrating Hesiod's Theogony (1932-55), the Helios lithographs (1946-47) and various preliminary studies. In spired by archaic Greek and Etruscan art and then re-interpreted in terms of Braque's own harmoniously graphic cubism, the A/ax is also endowed with a more contemporary spontaneity. The firmly delineated black and white double line describing the figure is partially obscured but the surface is further enriched by explosive areas of splattered and splashed color. It is an excellent illustration of Braque's statement: "I like the rule that corrects the emotion; I like the emotion that corrects the rule."

8 83/a". Opposite: BRAQUE. Seated Nude , 1926. Pastel, 36y x 25 Pur chased 1951.

At the same time that he was constructing such complex and for mal still lifes as The Mantelpiece (page 32), Braque had also em barked on a series of nudes known as the Canephors— majestic giantesses' inspired by the ritual basket-bearers of ancient Greece. This is one of several pastel studies for paintings executed between 1922 and 1926. The basic two-dimensionality of the drawn figure is modified but not overcome by the gentle modeling. Its monu- mentality is expressed by breadth instead of by volume; head and body are widened beyond naturalism, spreading over the picture plane rather than forward into space. This passive, generalized earth goddess exudes both a classical calm and a touch of romantic melancholy.

30 /8 /83/8". BRAQUE. The Mantelpiece (1922). Oil on canvas, 513 x 29 Purchased 1945. Illustrated page 32.

By 1922, Braque had developed a distinctly personal style out of the prewar discoveries shared with Picasso. Here a favorite cubist subject (see also page 22) is treated in a serene, elegant, and cal ligraphic manner, though the rectilinear scaffolding and measured formal relationships of cubism are retained. Pattern is restricted to logical areas—primarily the patch of wallpaper and the marble fire place. Set between these two angular architectural planes, the still life is flattened and uptilted in order to equate it with its surround ings. Guitar, grapes, bottle, dish of pears and finally the music score labeled "Duo," define a subtly graduated depth. Though the vol ume of these objects is denied, their fluid contours, marked by heavy irregular black line, re-establish their individualities; their freely rendered shapes are echoed in the ornamental scroll and carving of the mantelpiece. A subdued but light palette is typical of the restrained opulence of Braque's postwar work, which was concerned with the look and the feel of each object as much as with its abstract nature and placement.

BRAQUE. Yellow Tablecloth (1935). Oil on canvas, 45 Vi x 57%". Purchased 1939. Illustrated page 33.

Braque distinguished two types of space between which his art is balanced, and they are especially evident in the still lifes: "Visual space separates the objects from each other. Tactile space sepa rates us from the objects." The latter is dominant in The Mantel piece (page 32); the former prevails here, resulting in an airy, open composition within a well-defined corner expanse. Once again the still life is described by cubist devices on a tilted plane against a flat, architectural background, but its pale, luminescent colors and formal variety make it looser, less intricate and more lively than the 1922 painting. The sharp triangle of brilliant yellow tablecloth calls attention to the inverted pyramidal grouping of objects; the guitar is playfully distorted; the wood grain of the table is deco rative but conspicuously unrealistic, itnlike the earlier marble pat tern. In 1937, this sunny and likeable painting was awarded first prize at the Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh.

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5/8". BRAQUE. Yellow Tablecloth (1935). Oil on canvas, 45% x 57 See note, page 31.

3/8". Opposite: BRAQUE. The Mantelpiece (1922). Oil on canvas, 51% x 29 See note, page 31

Opposite: BRAQUE. Woman at an Easel, 1936. Oil on canvas, 51 V2 x 637s". Purchased 1949. This figure is almost contemporary with Yellow Tablecloth (page 33). It is one of a large series begun in 1936 portraying interiors with seated women engaged in artistic pursuits. The relatively sim ple and open left side is dominated by a lean black profile which is directly opposed to its "shadow"— a pale, billowing front-face view corresponding to the more ornate and decorative clutter at the right. The "neckline" of this figure's dress is an unmistakably architectural angle reflected by the picture frame above. Curvi linear rhythms moving across the sharp division unite the two sides. The graceful elongated figure has less solidity than the objects with which she is surrounded. As in many of Braque's paintings (see also pages 30 and 35), a dark border or "frame" further stresses a calm detachment from reality. The double viewpoint— a reminder of earlier cubism— suggests a mirror image, and is found in similar scenes by Picasso (see page 28).

8". 2 BRAQUE. The Studio (1949). Oil on canvas, 51 '/ x 29y Pur chased 1950. In the great series of Studios executed after World War II, Braque turned for subject matter to his own created environment, his private world of objects and works of art—familiar, but juxtaposed by chance. This canvas recalls analytical cubism in its restriction to brown and gray tones, its airless space, interwoven forms, variety of pattern and texture, as well as in the stenciled letters at the lower right. But its breadth, freedom and taste are of a later date. Fundamentally a vertical tower of objects— palette, pitcher, oval picture of a classical head and rectangular window shape— it is subtly offset by the bolder, decorative shapes at upper left and lower right. The white light fixture framed by rich black and the two dabs of bright red and green paint on the palette are brilliant highlights within the somber total scheme.

8 8/8 LECER. The City, 1919. Oil on canvas, 38V x 513 " - See note, page 38.

Opposite: GRIS. Still Life with Playing Cards (1913). Oil on canvas, 39'/2 x 25%". See note, page 38. JUAN CRIS (Jose Gonzalez). Spanish, 1887-1927. Worked in Paris. FERNAND LEGER. French, 1881-1955. The City , 1919. Oil on can 2 23/4".83/s". Still Life with Playing Cards , (1913). Oil on canvas, 39'/ x 25 vas, 38 y x 51 Purchased 1951. Purchased 1944. "Isolated color which had plastic activity of its own, without being Gris himself compared his art to the "cold" classicism of Ingres bound to an object" is how Leger expressed one of the major ele and Seurat, and he was considered highly intellectual even within ments of this painting. This next to final version of one of his early the conceptual framework of cubism. Yet the precision and co masterpieces (now in the Philadelphia Museum) was preceded by herence of this still life do not exclude certain free forms, such as myriad studies, often representing only minute changes in compo the almost organic guitar which forms the apex of the pyramidal sition. The column form at the right was ultimately changed to a grouping, or the freely rendered blue-tinted area on its left edge banded diagonal, the stenciled letters to its left became stronger, a and the richness of the red-on-red wallpaper. The colors are trans zig-zag replaced the two diagonals in the upper right corner, and lucent and unexpected, ranging from brilliant greens, violets, and so on. Step by step Leger evolved a complex symphony in brilliant, blues to bold blacks and a whole scale of browns. Weight and dissonant color and urban-derived form. The flat, fragmented buoyancy are combined in the forms as well; some are planar, shapes are suggestive rather than figurative, yet it is a recognizable others modeled for volume. Mass is concentrated at the left of the depiction of man in the modern city, surrounded by a bewildering composition, but the directional thrusts are to the right. Guitar, environment of industrialization and progress which threatens to newspaper (palely suggested by white lettering on blue), simu dehumanize its inhabitants. The two shadowy men are less real lated wood, decorative pattern, bright flat color and the denial of than the painted mannequins. "For me," said Leger, "the human deep space are among the trademarks of synthetic cubism in body has no more importance than keys or bicycles." cluded here.

38 LEGER. Woman with Cat, 1921. Oil on canvas, 51 % x 35%". Pur chased 1958. This woman, whose massive machine-like limbs are dully gleaming like the "steel with a thousand reflections" Leger had found so attractive in big guns, is typical of the increasing impersonalism of his art. She is static and faceless against a field of erratic patterns and solids. The whole canvas is low-keyed, almost monochrome except for the brilliantly checkered yellow and black chair. The woman's legs are a warmer, more earthy tone— a concession to her humanity. "I search for the form and I find the rhythm ... I always depart from the object and I never produce sentiment." Sacrificing emotional appeal on the altar of order, Leger became a master of pictorial design.

Opposite: GRIS. Still Life with Class of Beer (1914). Collage, oil, charcoal, pencil and ink on canvas, 21 % x 28%". Purchased 1949. In 1914, collage became a major element in Gris' refinement and control of cubist technique. Here most of the surface is covered by pasted papers— wood-grained, marbleized, newsprinted or just shaded in charcoal— which stress the presence of a flat picture plane. These materials are not imitative of reality, and were in tended, said Gris, as "simple facts, but created by the mind,... one of the justifications for a new form in space." This new form was achieved by the fragmentation and faceting of planes into angular slivers, among which a few hard and tangible circular shapes stand out as clues to recognition of glasses or foam on the beer. Their curves are echoed by the oval format. A single cool, dark green in the tablecloth relieves the low-keyed chorus of brownish tones (some of which are due to age), and the result of this economy is a complex creation that owes little to nature.

Opposite: ROGER de LA FRESNAYE. French, 1885-1925. Artillery , 4 4 1911. Oil on canvas, 51 '/ x 62%". Purchased 1943. Lucidly, even rigorously organized, with an eye to classical distinc tion of individual form, this is an early example of La Fresnaye's cubism, which was to become less literal in the next three years and reach its climax in the great Conquest of the Air. Patriotism was then a favorite theme of his, and this presents an ideal of war —French flags waving, bands playing, cannons rolling, horses pranc ing. All nobility and martial glory, it was executed before the artist experienced the horrors of actual battle, where he received wounds that made him an invalid and finally took his life at the age of forty. This is cubism in the traditional grand manner. Clear diagonals define the compact mass of men, horses and guns surging to the upper left. The flatter and more abstract cubist planes at the edges echo and prolong the enclosed movement. La Fresnaye had trav eled in Italy in 1910, and the somber color pierced by flashes of red, blue or gold, chiaroscuro concentrated on the geometric es sence of each volume and curves played against angles indicate the influence of Uccello as well as of Delacroix and Cezanne.

RAOUL DUFY. French, 1877-1953. Mozart's House in Salzburg, 5/s". 1916. Oil on canvas, 31% x 25 Purchased 1944. Dufy had a lifelong attachment to musical subjects, among which references to Mozart's rococo forms often appeared. "My eyes were made to efface that which is ugly," he once said, and his art finally reflected his involvement with fashion and theatre design in its acceptance of the conventionally pretty. This painting repre sents a transitional period in which the remnants of Dufy's fauve and cubist styles provide a solid skeleton of angular form and bright color on which to superimpose the calligraphic motifs that eventually comprised his mature style. The flat and decorative cen tral area contrasts with the weightier cubist periphery. House, horn and score are drawn, rather than painted, as are the curling lines of the sculptured pediment, ironwork gate and vine at the right. They are not fragmented and integrated into the whole as they would have been in a cubist work, but are separated and pulled forward as such' objects often were in French baroque illustration and ornament.

41 42 Opposite: BONNARD. Nude in Bathroom (1932). Oil on canvas, 47% x 46 Vi". See note, page 44. MODIGLIANI. .Flower Vendor (1917). Oil on canvas, 45% x 287s". See note, page 44. PIERRE BONNARD. French, 1867-1947. Nude in Bathroom (1932). 2". Oil on canvas, 47% x 46y Purchased 1947.

This 1932 oil incorporates an intimate, poetic mood and an off- center "Japanese'' composition which is experienced at first glance as a field of sun-struck color rather than as a specific scene. Bon- nard has set curving foreground forms in shallow space against a rectilinear background, but the logic of the painting's structure is disguised by shimmering, overlapping planes and indistinct pat terns, by close-valued, intense hues that blur edges and textural differences and unite areas of warmth and coolness to produce a single surfaced, tapestry-like effect related to Persian painting. Whereas Bonnard's light-filled color and technique emerged from impressionism, at the other extreme it seemed to anticipate ab stract expressionism, particularly in those later works where paint quality and surface gained more and more independence from form. The nude figure— probably the artist's wife, who has been described as "self-absorbed" and "moving on tiptoe"— is out of focus, as though accidentally caught by a camera aimed at some thing else; she is remote and passive, her bowed head stressing the aura of privacy and the domesticated hedonism that pervades all of Bonnard's art.

AMEDEO MODIGLIANI. Italian, 1884-1920. Worked in France. Opposite: GIORGIO de CHIRICO. Italian, born Greece 1888. 3/8 Flower Vendor (1917). Oil on canvas, 45% x 28%". Purchased 1950. Worked in Paris. Ariadne , 1913. Oil on canvas, 53 x 71". Pur Three years before his untimely death, Modigliani painted this chased 1955. calmly curving portrait of a Parisian flower-seller. He usually pre Despite de Chirico's profound influence on the later surrealist ferred subjects from the working classes; the simplicity, directness movement, he stands alone in contemporary art by virtue of his and at the same time atavistic elegance of his style lent itself to enigmatic fusion of past and present, classicism and romanticism. portraits. As in other paintings discussed here, the rounded vol The emphasis on the subconscious sources in his art is a twentieth- umes of the figure are placed before a rectangular ground; further century manifestation, but these sources are expressed in terms of contrast is provided by the dark, cool shade of the girl's dress and a great nostalgia for the past, evident in de Chirico's iconography, the rich, earthy browns and reds around her. The figure is a flow technique, and even his radically altered perspectives, which recall ing quasi-silhouette— immobile, elongated, with the frontality, py the early Renaissance. The Ariadne shown here is the artist's variant ramidal form and unblinking gaze of a medieval madonna. Another on a Roman copy after a Hellenistic statpe, but it lacks the perfec element from traditional portraiture is the two hands that stand out tion of the Antique, and is, in fact, more crudely rendered than starkly from the dress and repeat the oval forms of face and neck anything else in the picture. Like the exaggeratedly diminished line. Straightforwardly realistic, this painting is nonetheless unmis arcade, tomb-like medieval tower, sharply shadowed empty piazza, takably modern in its roughly rendered surface and strong color. distant train and ship, and the pellucid light, the sleeping figure is The columnar neck, oval face, eyes, mouth and triangular nose are one of the habitual props in de Chirico's dream theater, each of modeled on African sculpture, like Picasso's earlier heads (see which has its roots in childhood experience or obsessive memory. page 17), but with very different results. The incongruity of the architectural elements is compounded by the locomotive, whose smoke is a motionless volume suggesting the reclining Ariadne itself. A curiously festive note is added to the gloomy palette by the tiny banners floating from tower and ship, but nothing is allowed to detract from the silence and sense of the infinite which are at the heart of metaphysical painting.

44 HBWi

Opposite: JOAN MIRO. Spanish, born 1893. Worked in Paris. Por MIRO. Personage , Animals and Mountains, 1935. Tempera on pa 8 8 trait of E. C. Ricart (1917). Oil and pasted paper on canvas, 32% x per, 13 y x 16%". Purchased 1955. 25%". Purchased 1950. Here is a parade of whimsical creatures resembling the fantastic This early portrait of a Catalan artist who was one of Miro's closest hybrids of Hieronymus Bosch, but Miro's figures are more barbaric friends during his student days in Barcelona, and with whom he and direct; the one on the left evokes a hulking caveman with a shared his first studio, recalls some of van Gogh's portraits in color, club over his shoulder, and there is something equally prehistoric composition, and use of the Japanese print. But where the post- about the stark mountain landscape— probably derived from that impressionist would have reproduced the print in paint, the post- of Montroig, in Catalonia, where the artist was spending his last cubist made a collage by gluing the original to the surface of the summer before the Spanish Civil War. The threatening conjunction canvas, creating a sharp contrast between its delicacy and pale of yellow, orange, purple and black, and the grimly determined colors and the deliberately crude treatment, weighty paint quality advance of the near-monsters (reflected by the incline of the cen and acrid hues of the rest of the painting. While the compart- tral hill and then countered by the variety of rhythm, shape and mented vertical signature as well as the shallow space and interest line in the foreground) convey a spirit of impending disaster, in pattern carry through the Japanese theme, the unconventional tempered, but not diminished, by an inherently decorative impulse. use of color, sculptural planes of the face, stylized jacket and hair, awkward non-realistic hands and the free-form palette on the wall distinctly belong to twentieth-century European art, and predict aspects of Miro's mature style. The result is direct characterization within a vigorously abstract framework.

Opposite: MIRO. Dutch Interior (1928). Oil on canvas, 50% x MIRO. Painting, 1936. Oil on masonite, 31 x 42%". Purchased 1950. 37%"- Purchased 1950. The Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx. In 1928, Miro went to Holland for a brief visit and brought back In 1936, in a series of rapidly executed paintings on masonite, Miro postcards of works seen in the museums, from which he painted dispensed with all figurative references, and object was replaced a series of Dutch Interiors paraphrasing seventeenth-century genre by symbol. He has always insisted that for him "a form is never scenes. While the origins of two of these are identified, a defini something abstract; it is always a sign of something." Nevertheless, tive source for this one has not yet been established, and it may be the emphasis here is on a ragged surface rhythm in which flat an amalgam of motifs from several paintings. The central figure drawn shapes are contradicted rather than fulfilled by rough seems to be a woman holding a book in one threadlike hand; the patches of color and texture. These are among his most expression- rectangles in the background could be paintings or windows, and istic works. In them he seems to have been less concerned with the two small shapes in the left corner, wooden shoes. The free formal organization than with the tactile qualities of the paint itself form at the left may be a musical instrument. Whatever the subject, and the gestures implicit in the act of painting. Miro has transformed it into a lively surrealist abstraction by changes of scale and pictorial emphasis, and by translation into the biomorphic forms, playful rhythms and dispersed calligraphic notes that constitute his unique style. For another modern interpretation of a seventeenth-century Dutch painting, see page 13.

49 GEORGES ROUAULT. French, 1871-1958. Sketch for The Three Opposite: ROUAULT. The Three Judges , 1928. Oil and gouache on 2 2 Judges (c. 1907). Oil and wash on red paper, 14% x 22%". Pur paper mounted on cardboard, 29'/ x 21%". Purchased 1943. The chased 1941. Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx.

The first ten years or so of Rouault's mature art were concerned "The reason I gave my judges such woeful faces," said Rouault, with social protest, and one of his major themes was the injustice "was doubtless that I expressed the anguish I myself feel when I and corruption of French law. A drawing of a judge dated 1901 see one human obliged to judge another." By 1928, the sinister trio seems to mark the beginning of this motif, and in 1907, like his had become more compact and tightly knit. The three heads— two great predecessor Daumier, Rouault began to frequent the courts in profile now— are molded into a single vertical form compart- and sketch the proceedings. Ritual subjects like trials, weddings, mented by the heavy black contour lines derived from the artist's lectures or banquets were often presented in such a tripartite early work in stained glass. While the faces are still travesties, there frontal composition. Rouault used it consistently on the three is an added solemnity that emphasizes the tragic rather than the judges theme, to which he returned again and again over the years. satirical side of the subject. Yet at the same time, the impression is This rapidly brushed sketch is one of the earliest examples. The conveyed that this same solemnity is a travesty in itself. The judges central face is exaggerated but not humorous; the other two, de are taking themselves seriously, but the quality of their justice has spite their lack of definition, are equally caustic. not improved.

Opposite: ROUAULT. King Ubu, 1916 (recto). Tempera on card board, 30 x 22%". Purchased 1954. ROUAULT Palace of King Ubu, 1916 (verso). Tempera on card board, 30 x 22%". Purchased 1954. "The grotesque and the tragic are juxtaposed in my work, but aren't they also inseparable in life?" No better subject could have been found for Rouault's brush than Alfred Jarry's great satirical epic, Ubu Roi, with its monstrous, absurd and very modern anti- hero. After Jarry's death Rouault was commissioned by the art- dealer Vollard to illustrate a "reincarnation" of Ubu written by Vollard himself. The prints were not finished until 1928, nor pub lished until 1932, but Rouault began studies of the subject in 1916. These two pictures are, therefore, among the first essays, and do not specifically relate to any of the completed prints. Ubu is de picted here in a manner unlike that usually employed by Rouault or by anyone else. Solid, almost rectangular in form, filling the sheet from top to bottom, this is the face of a cruel oriental poten tate, more imposing than ridiculous with its blank eyes and medie val frontality. The eastern motif is continued in the onion-domed palace on the reverse side, which is rather oddly proportioned in accord with the character of its mythical inhabitant.

53 JEAN DUBUFFET. French, born 1901. Building Facades, Paris, 1946. Opposite: CHAIM SOUTINE. French, born Lithuania, 1894-1943. 2 22". Oil, sand and charcoal on canvas, 44 y x 57'/ Purchased 1947. Man in a Green Coat (c. 1921). Oil on canvas, 35 x 21%". Pur Although he returned to primitive sources for his inspiration like chased 1950. the cubists and the surrealists, Dubuffet attempted to divest them Soutine spent his most productive, and probably greatest, years— of all exoticism in order to stress direct experience and return from 1919 to 1922— in the little town of Ceret in the French Pyre art to its true role as a "free celebration... whose only terrain is nees, where he created a new mode of expressionism. Freedom of rapture and delirium." In conscious revolt against the overtasteful paint handling was equaled only by the emotional intensity of the and decadent art prevalent in Paris in the forties, he has utilized twisting forms, perhaps partially inspired by El Greco. Several por awkward stick figures, rough techniques and denial of perspective traits exist of the man depicted here, but individual characteriza to depict the swarming multiplicity and anonymity of modern city tion is forgone for overall mood, specific textures for a single uni life. His own collection of art brut (crude or "raw" art) includes fied surface that is neither cloth nor flesh, but a substantial, tan work from primitive cultures, and by the untaught, the insane and gible amalgam of both with the quality of the paint itself. As in children, but although his style may stem from the unaffected Soutine's landscapes, movement rather than form is paramount. naivete of children's art, no six-year-old could master that subtle Sinuous distortion, continuous brushstroke, and rhythmic flow, in balance between savage satire and richly humorous "innocence" fact, liken the figure to a mountain. An earthy contour against a which has made Dubuffet one of the most sophisticated and in flaming "sky," it climbs steeply to the left, the extended shoulder fluential artists of the postwar period. moving uninterruptedly into the long face.

INDEX OF ARTISTSAND WORKS

BONNARD, PIERRE (Picasso continued) Nude in Bathroom, 42 Head of a Boy, 27 BRAQUE, GEORGES Head of a Peasant, 19 Ajax, 30 Seated Nude, 20 The Mantelpiece, 32 Still Life with Plaster Arm, 23 Seated Nude, 31 Woman by the Sea, 27 The Studio, 35 Woman Combing Her Hair, 18 Woman at an Easel, 34 Woman in Armchair, 24 Yellow Tablecloth, 33 Woman with Pears, 21 de CHIRICO, GIORGIO Woman's Head, 17 Ariadne, 45 ROUAULT, GEORGES King Ubu, 52 DUBUFFET, JEAN Building Facades, Paris, 54 Palace of King Ubu, 53 Sketch for The Three Judges, 50 DUFY, RAOUL The Three Judges, 51 Mozart's House in Salzburg, 41 SOUTINE, CHAIM GRIS, JUAN Man in a Green Coat, 55 Still Life with Class of Beer, 38 Still Life with Playing Cards, 36

LA FRESNAYE, ROGER de Artillery, 40

LEGER, FERNAND The City, 37 Woman with Cat, 39

MATISSE, HENRI SCHEDULE OF THE EXHIBITION Apples, 11 The Museum of Modern Art, New York: Goldfish, 10 November 1, 1965-January 2, 1966 Moroccan Garden, frontispiece The Moroccans, 15 The Art Institute of Chicago: Variation on a Still Life by de /Teem, 13 February 11-March 27, 1966 Woman on a High Stool, 6 City Art Museum of St. Louis: MIRO, JOAN April 26-June 13, 1966 Dutch Interior, 48 Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City: Painting, 49 July 2-August 7, 1966 Personage, Animals and Mountains, 47 San Francisco Museum of Art: Portrait of E. C. Ricart, 46 September 2-October 2, 1966 MODIGLIANI, AMEDEO Flower Vendor, 43

PICASSO, PABLO Bust of a Man, 17 Bust of a Woman, 16 Girl Reading, 28 Cover: The Moroccans, (1916). Oil on canvas, 71% x 110". Guitar over Fireplace, 22 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Head, 25 Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx.

s V

A Selected List of Publications of The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10019

Americans 1963. 112 pages; 112 illustrations; paper, $2.95 Architecture Without Architects. 128 pages; 163 illustrations; cloth, $6.95 Art Israel: 26 Painters and Sculptors. 88 pages; 84 illustrations; cloth, $5.95 Arp. 126 pages; 114 illustrations (2 in color); cloth, $2.75 Art Nouveau: Art and Design at the Turn of the Century. 192 pages; 193 illustrations (1 in color); cloth, $6.50 Max Beckmann. 160 pages; 113 illustrations (13 in color); cloth, $10.00 Bonnard and His Environment. 116 pages; 107 illustrations (41 in color); cloth, $7.50 The Work of Jean Dubuffet. 184 pages; 125 illustrations (21 in color); cloth, $7.50 Max Ernst. 64 pages; 85 illustrations (1 in color); paper, $2.50 Walker Evans: American Photographs. 198 pages; 87 illustrations; cloth, $7.50 Fifteen Polish Painters. 64 pages; 65 illustrations (1 in color); paper, $2.75 Futurism. 154 pages; 141 illustrations (22 in color); cloth, $3.50 Alberto Ciacometti. 120 pages; 112 illustrations (16 in color); cloth, $7.95 lames Lord: A Giacometti Portrait. 80 pages; 16 illustrations; paper, $1.50 D. W. Griffith: American Film Master. 88 pages; 108 illustrations; cloth, $6.95 juan Cris. 128 pages; 126 illustrations (19 in ccdor); cloth, $2.75 The History of Impressionism, Revised and Enlarged Edition. 662 pages; 635 illustrations (86 in color); cloth, $25.00 The History of Photography: 1839 to the Present Day, Revised and Enlarged Edition. 212 pages; 210 illustrations; cloth, $12.50 Introduction to Twentieth Century Design. 98 pages; 132 illustrations; paper, $2.95 Masters of British Painting— 1800-1950. 160 pages; 104 illustrations (16 in color); boards, $5.50 Masters of Modern Art. 240 pages; 356 illustrations (77 in color); boards, $16.50 loan Miro. 164 pages; 148 illustrations (35 in color); cloth, $8.50 Modern Gardens and the Landscape. 100 pages; 135 illustrations (6 in color); cloth, $5.95 Robert Motherwell. 96 pages; 71 illustrations (11 in color); cloth, $6.95 New Spanish Painting and Sculpture. 64 pages; 58 illustrations; paper, $1.95 Emil Nolde. 88 pages; 67 illustrations (17 in color); cloth, $6.95 The Sculptor's Studio: Etchings by Picasso. 48 pages; 23 illustrations; paper, $1.25 Odilon Redon—Custave Moreau—Rodolphe BrPsdin. 184 pages; 123 illustrations (31 in color); boards, $7.50 The Responsive Eye. 56 pages; 46 illustrations (13 in color); paper, $1.95 Rodin. 228 pages; 172 illustrations (4 in color); cloth, $8.50 Medardo Rosso. 92 pages; 68 illustrations (1 in color); cloth, $5.00 Mark Rothko. 44 pages; 30 illustrations (6 in color); paper, $1.50 Georges Rouault: Paintings and Prints. 132 pages; 131 illustrations (4 in color); cloth, $3.75 Steichen the Photographer. 80 pages; 55 illustrations; paper, $2.50 De Stijl. 16 pages; 16 illustrations (3 in color); paper, 751 Textiles and Ornaments of India. 96 pages; 110 illustrations (16 in color) ; boards, $4.00 What Is Modern Painting ? 48 pages; 55 illustrations (1 in color); paper, $1.25 A complete list of Museum publications is available on request